The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for information processing and a storage medium for storing such a method. More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus and a method for information processing and a storage medium for accommodating that method, whereby users represented by avatars in a shared virtual space may each remain active therein without getting annoyed with an obnoxious avatar of any other user.
There have existed personal computer network services such as NIFTY-Serve (trademark) of Japan and CompuServe (trademark) of the United State. Each of these entities allows a plurality of users to connect their personal computers through modems and over a public switched telephone network to a centrally located host computer in accordance with a predetermined communication protocol. A cyberspace service called Habitat (trademark) has been known in this field.
The development of Habitat was started in 1985 by LucasFilm Ltd. of the United States. When completed, Habitat was run by QuantumLink, a U.S. commercial network, for about three years before Fujitsu Habitat (trademark) began to be offered in Japan by NIFTY-Serve in February 1990. Habitat embraces a virtual city called “Populopolis” which, drawn in two-dimensional graphics, is inhabited by users' alter egos called avatars (incarnations of Hindu deities). Through their avatars, the users carry on between them what is known as a chat (a real-time text-based dialogue in which characters are input and read by users). More detailed information about Habitat is found in “Cyberspace: First Steps” (ed. by Michael Benedikt, 1991, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., ISBN0-262-02327-X, pp. 282-307).
In a conventional cyberspace system run by the above-mentioned type of personal computer network service, virtual streets as well as house interiors were described in two-dimensional graphics. For apparent movement toward the depth of a scene or back to its front side, avatars were simply moved upward or downward against a two-dimensional background. There was precious little power of expression to make users enjoy a virtual experience of walking or moving about in the virtual space. Furthermore, a given user's avatar was viewed along with other users' avatars simply from a third party's point of view in the virtual space. This was another factor detracting from the effort to let users have more impressive virtual sensory experiences.
In order to improve on such more or less unimpressive proxy experiences, there have been proposed functions which display a virtual space in three-dimensional graphics and which allow users freely to move about in the virtual space from their avatars' points of view. Such functions, disclosed illustratively in U.S. Pat. No. 5,956,038, are implemented by use of 3D graphic data in description language called VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). A description of various cyberspace environments in which users may carry on chats using avatars is found in the Sep. 9, 1996 issue of Nikkei Electronics (a Japanese periodical, No. 670, pp. 151-159).
Where a plurality of avatars are set to be active in such a virtual space, the users may sometimes have squabble between them through their avatars. For example, a user B represented by an avatar “b” may criticize or annoy a user A symbolized by an avatar “a” in a text-based chat or may harass the avatar “a” illustratively by obstructing the latter's movements.
In such cases, the user B may remain stubbornly disagreeable despite admonitions through chats and harass the user A every time the latter takes part in the shared virtual space. System administrators, when alerted to the scuffle, may find it hard to take effective countermeasures.
One way to circumvent such unpleasant experiences might be to add to the system a function allowing the user A forcibly to log out the user B from the shared virtual space. But the function, if implemented, might be abused by the user B forcing the user A out of the shared virtual space.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and provides an apparatus and a method for permitting a plurality of users to remain active in a shared virtual space without getting annoyed with one another.